Friday, June 26, 2015

Pottery Identity

Things are busy here. Summer always is. I'm not complaining - I love to be busy. Sometimes the to do list just doesn't seem to get anything checked off it though. That can be frustrating, can't it?

Kristin Nicholas Pottery - Photo Rikki Snyder

A couple weeks ago, I announced the new Pottery Shop I set up over on Etsy here on the blog. I assume I will do most of my business on-line. It's all set up now and running and I thank everyone for the orders. You all are fantastic! What support I have. Really - I am so thankful.

Kristin Nicholas Pottery - Photo Rikki Snyder

Even if one thinks setting up an on-line Etsy business is cheap and the way to go, it isn't free. You still need business cards, cards for "identity" and promotion, and thank you cards. And you need the time to set it all up and learn the Etsy program, take the photos for selling, list the items, set up the business cards, etc. It is a big time suck for sure. Nothing is free - you all know that.

Kristin Nicholas Pottery - Photo Rikki Snyder

I got lucky with my business and identity cards. When Rikki Snyder was here a few weeks ago, we did an impromptu photo shoot so that I could have some images for biz cards, etc. Rikki is such a great stylist and photographer. I cannot believe how beautiful the images came out. I'm including them sprinkled throughout this post.
(Sorry about the moire wackiness on the linen fabrics - something happens when I reduce the size of the image - I'm not sure why? Does anyone know how to stop this from happening?)

Kristin Nicholas Pottery - Photo Rikki Snyder

As for the business cards, etc. I use an on-line company called Overnight Prints. They do beautiful work, have good customer service, and if they screw up, they re-print once you send them photos of their ooooopsy. I highly recommend them. I use Photoshop for my layouts but you can drop your own photos into their pre-designed templates really easily.
If you do decide to do your own design, I suggest downloading one of their templates. That way you will have the settings all ready for their press and won't have any mistakes (like not having the photo in CMYK and in RGB instead!).Their minimum orders are incredibly easy to achieve - I usually go for the 250 to 500 piece per design range but you can order as few as 25 cards. Boy, gone are the bad old days of ordering 1000's of a piece of print to have sitting around for years and years before hitting the recycling bin.
Here's what I set up and ordered from Overnight Prints. It is so nice to have a colorful piece to pack inside the orders. If you were one of the very first orders, I wasn't quite ready with these swanky cards. Next time!

You can check out my Pottery Shop here over on Etsy. You may notice that I just added Google AdSense to my blog. I'm giving it a try to see if it helps me earn any extra money. If it is not much, I will delete it. So far the ads I have seen haven't been too ugly or bad. Time will tell. Hope you all understand that this is a farm and a business and we have to earn money in a mess of different ways.

4 comments:

seriously. Most People have NO idea about the "background" work of doing ANY online Business!! - Or, for that matter, Craft Show "set-up"... Some times, I think the actual MAKING of your Product takes the *lesser* amount of time! "FREE" is a MYTH!

Which reminds me, I probably should be getting some "postcards" done of my stuff too... If only to offset my I've-had-for-years-but-people-still-like-them biz cards.;-D

Etsy is a business like all the others, Kristen. The physical aspects of entrepreneurship and business do not disappear just because the store is online. Like what you’ve said, there are business cards that you have to worry about, as well as getting the raw materials to make the pottery or the goods that you intend to sell. So yeah, one should factor all that into the budget, so you won’t be financially burdened at the end of it all.

About Me

I am an author and artist specializing in surface design including the disciplines of ceramics, textiles, needlework, knitwear, stitchery, and interior design. The thread that holds my work together is color and pattern. I live in western Massachusetts, USA in a 1751 farmhouse with my husband Mark and daughter Julia on a farm along with over 250 sheep, chickens, cats and dogs.

Copyright Kristin Nicholas 2006 - 2019

All words and photos are copyright by Kristin Nicholas. Please do not use my original photos or reprint my writing without asking me for permission. Please make sure you credit me as Photographer and link back to this blog. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to e-mail me - my contact info is on the left sidebar. Thank you!